“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
Flannery O’Connor

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Meddlesome Malaise

I have discovered that amongst all
my other ailments I suffer from yet another newly realized, and most wearisome
malady. Styx Syndrome, AKA “Too Much Time on My Hands.” Being a gentleman of
enforced leisure (medical retirement) who is ofttimes confined to my Sanctum
Sanctorum due to my infirmities, my mind works in excess of necessity. There
are so many things that occur to me, especially as a writer, which might fill
the void I find it irksome not being able to ascertain what to next do. Having
finished a story that took its own sweet time coming to me and my fingers I
plunged into a period of reflective entropy. The query “what’s next” enveloped
my being, as it always does between writing adventures, and I searched for the
answer to that most bothersome query.

Then the light bulb over my head
popped on in all its 1000 watt brilliance…READ!

Being what I believe to be the
preeminent state in which to exist in, a thinking man, I indulged my first love
and delved into tomes with the loftiest paradigms. What is the meaning of life?
In my six plus decades of verve this has always proven to be the most difficult
of pursuits. The question has been taken up and discarded an equal amount of
times along the way to this writing. There were times when I failed to answer
it. There were times when the solution was crystal clear. Neither way held much
solace for me. Interruptions in this quest have interfered from time to time.
Wearisome items such as earning a living, paying the electricity bill, finding
a new job, reading rejection letters of my self-acclaimed works of everlasting
wisdom, the discovery of a new love, the grief of associated with the loss of a
cherished loved one, and all the other mundane realities that probably answer
way more eloquently than I what exactly is the meaning of life.

I began by reading a trio of books
explaining our culture which described the ideal that the first time a human
woke up and wished for more than was needed was the beginning of the
extermination of all mankind. Certainly this offered a rather dismal generalization
of our species and accurate but for the one thing that might help us to
survive, which was also reported in these important works. We have the ability
to change our circumstances.

Next, for no fathomable reason, I viewed
a film entitled “The Man Who Knew Infinity”
about a mathematician who was born during the “British Raj” period prior to
Indian independence. Srinivasa Ramanujan was born into a poor Brahman
family, and was a mostly self-taught prodigy who eventually became a Fellow of
the Royal Society, as well as a Fellow of Trinity College at Cambridge
University. His works are on display in the library there as well as the “Philosophiæ
Naturalis Principia Mathematica” by Sir Isaac Newton, the inventor of calculus
and many of the foundations of modern physics. All this while suffering
discrimination, poverty, and poor health.

I am currently delving into “A
Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking. Another choice with no recognizable
foundation towards the question I probably do not truly wish the answer to.
Admittedly, my personal research has been prejudiced by events in my life of
both a positive and negative nature. The academic part of my persona is
certainly piqued with the lofty writings of famous mathematicians and
physicists. The cognitive side of me has recently taken up the task of
maintaining my intellect due to an ever growing difficulty with memory
retention. Then there is the ever troubling portion of me that looks into the
night sky finding itself time and again mystified.

The Spiritual

Not wishing to drift off into yet
another perplexing area, that being in the ideal of whether or not there is a
God; I will make things, for today simple. I believe in God, and I believe in
Science and mathematics. The rest of the claptrap about God’s existence is best
left for another day, or a Nighttime Talk Show.

As I read and contemplated the
significance of asking for the meaning of something that obviously already
exists, I came up with the ideal of discovering what is of true import. That is
the crux of searching for the meaning of life. Knowing it or not knowing it is
not imperative in the face of having life and making it relevant. Great
thinkers miss this, I believe. The real question is: What would you want life
to be. Is it a meaning or an action? (Reference our ability to change our circumstances)

Somewhere along the way, the
meaning of life got itself associated with the conundrum of an unanswerable question
being whether science is the answer, or is God the answer? How did we get here?
What came first, the chicken or the egg? What was there before the big bang?
How did all this happen?

Science has theories to guide it. This
means that some really smart people sit around (much like me) and think about
things in order to answer the chicken thing, or the meaning of the Big Bang
Theory.

Science has determined that the egg
came first in a most baffling manner imaginable. The explanation requires an
understanding of several disciplines; biology, zoology, genetics, and Marvel
Comic books and movies. Neil deGrasse Tyson made it much simpler: "Which
came first: the chicken or the egg? The egg – laid by a bird that was not a
chicken." And we thus discover the issue with asking too many questions.

TheBig Bangtheoryis the prevailingcosmologicalmodelfor theuniverse.
In a user friendly definition thanks to Wikipedia, “The universe began very
hot, small, and dense, with no stars, atoms, form, or structure (called a
"singularity"). Then about 13.8 billion years ago, space expanded
very quickly (thus the name "Big Bang"). This started the formation
of atoms, which eventually led to the formation of stars and galaxies.”
Scientists have thought and thought, and wrote and rewrote about this effect
exhaustively, they have modeled and remodeled ad infinitum. The results of all
this thinking, writing, and modeling/remodeling has culminated in the #1
comedic Sitcom in the world. All of the actors except one (Mayim Bialik, PhD in
Neuroscience) have no expertise in science and admit to just reading lines from
a script.

The seeming antithesis of all this
thinking, writing, modeling/remodeling would be God. Given that this is an
undefinable issue from a fact based physically provable it might be time better
spent in discussing the differences between science and God. Here are some
facts/paradigms/space fillers to consider:

Many
learned people have rejected the existence of a God. Where did God come
from? For an answer to that I will fall on my own spiritual beliefs which
is Christian based;

“He is before all
things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

6,120,000,000,000 people in the world believe in
some form of deity. Would that not be enough of a mathematical prevalence
to prove the existence of God?

Actually, a great mathematician and logician Kurt
Gödel derived a series of equations that prove the existence of God. These
equations have been discovered valid by modern computer scientists.

Some believe the Big Bang implies a creator, and
some see its mention in their holy books, while others argue that Big Bang
cosmology makes the notion of a creator superfluous. Herr Gödel
illuminated further. '"An equation for me has no meaning," he
once said, "unless it expresses a thought ofGod."

The writing of this fellow
intrigued me and I went off on a tangent for about a half a day into the proofs
of the existence of God. I discovered many and read them all and came away from
the exercise had begun to make me doubt my own belief in a God. I wondered how
this course of inquiry could make me turn God, a present personality in my
life, into “a God” as if it were something that could be disproved. Certainly
cause for befuddlement for a believer since birth.

I then took a break and came back
and reread all the proofs I researched and realized something. They were all
confusing and meaningless to anyone wishing to live a simple life. Just check
out Herr Gödel’s treatise:

Definition 1: x is
God-like if and only if x has as essential properties those and only those
properties which are positive

Definition 2: A is an
essence of x if and only if for every property B, x has B necessarily if and
only if A entails B

Definition 3: x
necessarily exists if and only if every essence of x is necessarily exemplified

Axiom 6: For any
property P, if P is positive, then being necessarily P is positive

Theorem 1: If a
property is positive, then it is consistent, i.e., possibly exemplified

Corollary 1: The
property of being God-like is consistent

Theorem 2: If
something is God-like, then the property of being God-like is an essence of
that thing

Theorem 3: Necessarily,
the property of being God-like is exemplified

What I came to is that there really no way to answer the
God/Science question. Science has tried both ways to look at it and cannot seem
to report on it that does not prove anything in simple terms. Even a well
thought mathematical proof by a respected mathematician cannot explain in
layman’s terms to this writer who got a “D” in statistics and had to repeat the
course in order to graduate college. Is science the answer? Ask a scientist to
give you one sentence answer if you ask them what was there before the universe
was created by the Big Bang. Similarly, for the God folks, ask your pastor (in
one short sentence) where did God come from?

It might be easier if we all just went in search of the Philosophers Stone. You know that element the alchemist
used to say was the substance that could turn a cheap base metal into gold. A
great idea and possible panacea for those financially disabled. Of course all that
meandering about in quest for pecuniary prosperity that might just complicate
things even more given that Alchemists were proven charlatans and sometimes
hunted as witches. The witch hunting reality in olden times could bring a tremendously
disagreeable demise. Most of them changed into chemists that today are deemed
legitimate. Although, they still can’t make gold out of lead. Just like we
cannot truly know the answers to great questions like the “What is the meaning
of life”

I
did find an answer to that bigger question, though. Well, perhaps not an answer
as much as an end to the confusion. I had researched until my head hurt and my
eyelids grew weary. (Especially after the half read “A Brief History of
Time”) I turned on the Great Knower. The much
maligned by Springsteen instrument of enlightenment sitting in all its High Definition
glory in my living room. I found it on television. Even there it was hidden
until I dove in to the depths that are called “Streaming. What I found was the
great and wise philosopher, teacher, and possible Holy Man who did not so much
answer the question than taught me what life is truly about. Not what to
question but how to act. Not thinking someone else is wrong but accepting that
the bastard might just be right. Not wondering what has happened but doing what
was right. Not doubting but believing. Not reading or asking but doing what I
am told: